Labour of Love

Showing on Saturday, October 25, 9.15, Vox 6 and Tuesday October 28, 4.15, Vox 5.

A still from Aditya Vikram Sengupta’s Labour of Love aka ASHA JAOAR MAJHE. Courtesy ADFF

Fans of slow cinema will find much to admire in Aditya Vikram Sengupta's debut film Labour of Love, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is based on Italo Calvino's tale The Adventure of a Married Couple. Like the 2005 documentary Our Daily Bed, the film takes a near dialogue-free look into the efforts that go into producing goods. This fictional account takes place in West Bengal and starts with a radio voiceover discussing the global economic crisis. Through visual images the director introduces us to the two principal protagonists, a woman (Basabdutta Chatterjee) who works through the day in a handbag factory, and her husband (Ritwick Chakraborty) who does the night shift at a printing press. They struggle to spend time with each other. The filmmaking style works as a metaphor for workers who don't have a voice in society, while the visuals manage to make even the mundane enthralling. *Kaleem Aftab

• Saturday, October 25, 9.15, Vox 6; Tuesday October 28, 4.15, Vox 5